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From: pamp@bcsaic.UUCP (pam pincha)
Newsgroups: net.bio,net.med,net.motss
Subject: Re: AIDS Research - Antiviral Drugs (Query)?
Message-ID: <413@bcsaic.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Dec-85 12:56:47 EST
Article-I.D.: bcsaic.413
Posted: Tue Dec 17 12:56:47 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Dec-85 04:15:59 EST
References: <894@ecsvax.UUCP> <835@h-sc1.UUCP>
Reply-To: pamp@bcsaic.UUCP (pam pincha)
Distribution: net
Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle
Lines: 40
Keywords: Also reverse transcriptase, and mosquitoes (???)
Xref: watmath net.bio:323 net.med:2997 net.motss:2353
Summary: 

In article <835@h-sc1.UUCP> shiue@h-sc1.UUCP (steve shiue) writes:
>
>	In addition, my roommate mentioned that mosquitoes might possibly
>provide suitable vectors for the spread of the disease - I've heard that this
>has been looked into in some towns in Florida with AIDS victims not in the
>"high risk" groups.  Does anyone know anything about this?

	Quote from Laurence,Jeffrey, 1985, The Immune system in AIDS,
		Scientific American,Dec.,vol.253,no.6,p.84-93.

	"The groups at highest risk for infection have become 
	increasingly well defined; they include homosexual and
	bisexual men, abusers of injected drugs, the sexual
	partners of people in AIDS risk groups, and children born
	of mothers at risk. Recipients of blood transfusions and blood
	products have also contracted AIDS, but screening of
	donated blood for evidence of infection has drastically
	reduced their risk. The fact that the disease shows
	*NO SIGN* of spreading beyond those groups, except to
	predictable targets such as women who are artificially
	inseminated from infected donors, indicates that the
	virus is ONLY transmitted through the blood or through
	sexual intercourse. *ALL EPIDEMIOLOGIC EVIDENCE INDICATES
	THAT FOOD, WATER, INSECTS AND CASUAL CONTACT DO NO SPREAD
	AIDS."

	This is a good article on how this virus affects the immune
	system in great detail. The one thing of note that has
	come out of the studies is that it "appears that the total
	collapse of the immune defenses in AIDS victims stems
	largely from a single defect : a reduction in the number
	and a change in the function of the T4 lymphocytes, one
	of the many distinct kinds of cells that make upthe immune
	system." Some how it seem incrediable how the bodies defenses
	can collapse from the failure of just one element.

	P.M.Pincha-Wagener

	
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